Thinking about venturing into the mobile flower shop or floral truck business? Team Flower already has a great guide on starting a flower truck business from the operator's perspective and how to run the business. However, in this brief guide, you'll find a more in-depth look at the flower truck or flower trailer itself.
When considering mobile flower businesses, each mobile sales solution model is unique with individual pros and cons. We’ve found from speaking with roughly a dozen prospective “florists on wheels” each month that these three primary solutions will cover most needs and wants:
Vintage Flower Trucks
Flower Trailers
Modern Mobile Flower Stores
Let’s dive into each of these mobile flower truck solutions in more depth.
Vintage Flower Trucks
The most obvious advantage to a vintage flower truck is the curb appeal—the truck lures customers in all by itself wherever you set up shop, acting as a substantial mobile advertising space. The truck is its own character and can have a name!
What’s less evident is that lovingly restored and unique vintage trucks are quite a stable store of value if not an outright investment, whereas practical step vans and box trucks depreciate—not just on the books but in the real market too. Converting vintage trucks to a working flower truck is not an invasive procedure. Should you ever want to move on to a different business or truck, classic car enthusiasts from other sectors will undoubtedly be interested.
And for starting entrepreneurs with an intermediate budget unsure if selling flowers is their forever career, the classic van might make more sense than a step van, even if the classic is initially more expensive.
It's not all roses—classics are generally small and offer limited space in the bed, are ill-suited to deliveries, and do not provide an inside area with a/c to work long days in hot states.
Flower Trailers
Square concession-style trailers are a popular solution for European flower merchants and are gaining modest traction stateside, providing all the space you need at a fraction of the cost of a large new step van.
Once you open up for selling, the merchandise soon takes the customer's attention over the box you're selling out of since you're able to make a whole display. Optionally, you can set up a transparent tent that attaches to the trailer on the side that opens up at your vending locations, which almost doubles your square footage.
This way, you can mimic a small brick-and-mortar store setup at markets. And when there's no market, you can use the trailer to haul flowers and bouquets for delivery.
If concession trailers sound too square for your idea, why not take a look at horse trailers or airstreams? Restored to a food truck, they can be extremely pricey. But as flowers are less of a fire hazard than burgers, getting a unique flower trailer can be a real possibility at a surprisingly modest budget.
Trailers are typically more economical, less maintenance intensive, and have lower insurance premiums. Of course, they are not self-driving, but that is the only real downside.
Modern Mobile Flower Stores
Doing events, photoshoots, weddings, and pop-ups with a vintage flower truck is the perfect small business dream for many. However, the massive turnover in floral work comes from building a brand, recurring clients, and orders—orders not easily fulfilled or delivered on the 50 squarefoot bed of a VW.
If Uprooted is more of a business inspiration to you than Amelia's, then step vans and Ford chassis cabs fitted with a custom box are the way to go for Floral Mogul ambitions. These units are premium custom trucks for business owners that know their market and their numbers. These business owners are willing to invest, knowing that if they carry this much inventory, have that much display space, and can service certain areas, the return is all but guaranteed.
Downside? They’re pricey and custom—making it a lot harder to resell.
General considerations
Designing a flower truck is creating a small storefront—and thinking through how to run that store best.
You have to focus on merchandising display, storage, and inventory as you take the style of sales into account (i.e.,build your own bouquet for consumers, creating a bouquet on siteforthe customer, or selling pre-made arrangements and plants). Your selected sales strategy will impact the path "through" your "store" and where to set up things like a wrapping station.
Other important considerations are whether there is a need for air-conditioning, where and how to set up the POS and cash register, and the necessary security system(s).
In an ever-changing industry, a flower truck can be a strike of gold! It is a great way to be in the community while bringing flowers to the community. You'll be a unique, sought after, and welcome gust of love and blooms where ever your truck takes you!
